His Life of Contradictions

Of Life and Death

"Here lies James Vincent Grey. Rest In Peace."

The gravestone read. The words deliberately chiseled into the smooth surface didn't do justice to the man lying six feet below.

The grass had just started growing over the freshly covered grave and the ground in the surrounding area was covered in bottles and cigarette butts, all left behind by visitors coming to pay their last respects to the man they all loved to hate.

The parties would never be as wild, the music would never be as loud, the booze never quite as potent, and the drugs never as hard without the presence of their patron saint to overlook the festivities.

"You've done it this time, Jimmy." A man with dark hair said, his voice thick with melancholy. "You didn't tell anyone what to write on your grave. They didn't even put your propper title."

The man dropped to his knees, uncapping the black sharpie he had brought with him. He scrawled Saint just above the name of the man who could easily be considered his closest friend, and even a bit more in some cases, and he drew a heart with an inverted cross jutting through the center just beside the name.

Sure, it may seem a bit pompous to hold a title like that, and especially to add that to a simple grave marker, but that's exactly what it was. It was a ridiculous title, but it just added to the character known to the world as Saint Jimmy.

He was larger than life. From the tips of the spikes atop his head, to the thick lines of black that rimmed eyes, all the way down to the ratty pants he wore, which were more hole than jean, he was different. Saint Jimmy was held in a class of his own.

Everything he did was extreme. Legend says he was born with a smoking pistol in one hand, a ready syringe in his other, and an unlit cigarette between his lips. And even more people recall his birth by adding a few lines about how he burst out in swears rather than cries promptly after exiting the asylum of his mother's womb. Although it sounds outlandish, upon meeting him, it was easy to believe. When you met him, it felt as though he was born covered in tattoos and the scars adorning him were birth marks rather than battle scars. You could imagine him as a small child with jet black hair and an even darker heart. He seemed to have been born as a demon destined to grace the world with his damned ways.

He'd never been quite what you'd imagine a saint to be. Saints were associated with holy things, with love and grace. He was made of the unholiest bits, void of nearly all good, yet he still was a saint. The patron saint of anger, of violence, of drugs and drinks, of disaster, and above all, the patron saint of denial. A leader to the misunderstood and lost.

"Fuck." The man kneeling down at the grave mumbled, burying his face in his hands. "Why'd you have to go and do this? You just had to go and shoot yourself." He took a deep breath. "All the boys told me that your angel face wasn't quite so angelic in that casket. They told me you shot yourself straight through the head and they couldn't put all the pieces back together." He let out a dry laugh, which lacked even the slightest hint of emotion. "What are you? Fucking Humpty Dumpty?"

"God dammit, Jimmy. Why'd you do this? We were supposed to be Johnny and Jimmy, the dynamic duo! We were supposed to be together forever. You're the saint! You were supposed to teach me your ways and show me how to live in this world! You promised!" He slammed a fist against the ground as his voice cracked. "But you lied! I should have known you would do this. I should have known everything was too good to be true. Whatsername told me I couldn't trust you! She knew you'd let me down like this!"

He leaned forward until his forehead rested against the cold, polished surface of the gravestone he had just drawn on. "You fucking asshole. I hate you!" And despite all of his rational mind screaming at him to get up and move on, his emotions won over. He just stayed like that for a long while, knees hugged to his chest, head resting against the stone, as a groan of utter agony grew in the back of his throat, until it finally amounted into a scream of pain. With that sound, any person listening would have come to the conclusion that the man's world was coming to an end, and in a twisted way, it actually was.